Sonny Liston vs. George Foreman

What about aside from Jimmy Young ?

 

This
And Liston had a gas tank.

 

Marshall was a good 40lb lighter than George Foreman and 24lb lighter than Sonny.

Sonny still only won the series of fights 2-1 against the much smaller guy.

The last fight Sonny may have won all the rounds but the fight was still a stinker. And apparently for all he lost Marshall still made Liston look bad abd busted up Sonnys face somewhat.

One fight report says:

“Marshall who sighed for the match on four days notice when Johnson came up with a shoulder injury, had given Liston his only defeat in the first of their two earlierbouts. Last night, when he wasn’t running, he appeared to imitate Tommy Hurricane Jackson.

Ponderous and plodding, Liston won the decision without losing a round and dealt out heavy punishment all through the second half of the fight. But Marshall however he did it, succeed in making Liston look bad.”



Jimmy Jordon, Pittsburgh post Gazette March 7 1956


Marshall backing up most of the fight, did manage to land a few wild lefts and rights, all haymakers, high on Listons head as he fought with the finesse of an octopus reaching for its prey, but the only apparent damage he inflicted was a slight trickle of blood from the left nostril and a bit of blood from the lower lip of Liston.

 

And this

 

Hey Choklab, I normally agree with alot of your stuff man, but you takin' Foreman on this one ? Man o Man, whatchu on brother ? Peak George got no gas tank. The fastest car on the grid is no good without no gas ! Respect my man

 

Hi GG.
It’s a tough call for me. Sonny still has to soak up some punching power from a game and more explosive kid before George shoots his bolt though. I think Sonny needs to turn boxer to win this, and he can do it, but he’s also going to get tagged a lot by better than usual big guy who is coming at him from the first moment. Sony fought back and turned the tables on Cleveland Williams after his fast start but young George, with a full head of hair, was a different kettle of fish to the big Cat.

I copied this down from an old poster on here:

“Although Sonnys losses to Ali are, as I have said, reasonably excusable in the sense that they are losses to The Greatest while Liston was a tad past his own peak, I believe that they still detract greatly from Liston's legacy on the basis of their content, which could reasonably be termed disgraceful (first fight) and embarrassing (second fight). Liston sat down on his stool and quit after six rounds in which he had not taken a great deal of punishment (and had possibly cheated) in the first fight, which is not conduct befitting a great champion, and speaks very poorly of Liston's fighting heart- and the fact that he quit so easily in a fight which was for the championship makes it all the more damaging. In the second fight, either Liston quit again, or, if he didn't, he unintentionally became one of only two first-round stoppage victims in Ali's entire career, the other being an obscure fighter with a losing record. Nearly everyone Ali fought, including fringe contenders, journeymen and club fighters, offered up a better performance than Liston did. I consider these fights a major strike against Liston's legacy.”

In his Prime George had his flaws. But Sonny, as this post says, has this strike against his legacy dosnt he?

Whilst I do believe Foreman gets over rated on the Frazier win he was always prepared to fight to the finish.

 

That's interesting.
However I've never judged Liston on the Ali fights.
Liston was champ well before he was champ.
By the time he was crowned champ he was ageing and passing his best ( although nobody knew that at the time). Liston was several years older than his stated age. I have a photo of him in police custody in 1952 , he looks mid twenties.
Once he more or less beat the whole division by 1961 there was nobody left to fight and he was kinda inactive. The Patterson blowouts a year apart meant by the time he fought Ali he was ageing and largely inactive which is a terribly corrosive mixture. He also had started to live the high life etc.
I think to judge this period as his peak is an error.
Patterson ducked him for years as Sonny mopped up the division. His wins 57-60 weren't dissimilar to Tyson 86-9.
It's this version of Liston that in my view beats any version you like of Foreman.
Foreman's fights pre title were padded out with some of the worst opposition ever barring one or two older names. Im not gonna revisit why I feel he's so overrated but he then blew out a poor version of Frazier who's not done anything remotely competitive for nearly 2 years apart from singing with his band.
Foreman had no gas tank.
Ali embarrassed him, Lyle almost outForemaned him and Young made a fool of him.
Liston could box and fight and peak Liston was way better than Lyle and Young.
Case closed in my view .

 

Christ almighty are you clutching at straws or what!!!!
Marshall ran all night and never won a single round how much more dominant could Liston be?
Ever heard of the saying , "credit where credit is due"?


You sound like Mendoza here!

 

Yeah, sorry. I’m going to try take that on board, when you say it like that it does look like I am knocking Sonny here. At least Sonny won the series.

I’m only drawing attention to these fights for the weight issue. And Sonny was in the development stage back then.

 

These are good points. The stuff about Foreman is correct. He bypassed more guys on the way to the title, and he paid a price for that.

Being embarrassed by Ali is certainly something both Sonny and Foreman both have in common. Maybe there is not so much between them?

Both unique in that they had too easy a time of it for a spell. Sometimes you can be a victim of your own success.

In a lot of ways Sonny is simply the better fighter. A better technician. It’s just that his career is difficult to assess. His clearing out the 1950s is a bit oversold. He was absent for some of it. He took a while to get going. Liston only fought maybe two rated HWs over the entire '50s, and didn't fight a top 5 contender until 1960. By 1964 it all was over.

Liston wasnt avoided that long. He hit the ratings in 58' for winning 7 fights against unrated fighters who had all lost their previous fight. 59' was the year sonny started fighting rated fighters but ingo quite rightly went ahead of him for iceing an unbeaten machen, the #1. It wasnt until 1960 where Liston was facing fighters rated above him in the ratings anyway.

True, Liston walked right through patterson and harris but both looked to be caught in the headlamps, offering zero resistance. machen and folley are good wins on paper but not fantastic given Listons weight advantage and fan hysteria.

It is unfortunate Sonny missed out on Ingo, Jones and Terrell. And it is just as unfortunate George missed out on Quarry and Bugner. It could have told us more.

I will also say that both Sonny and George were unequivocally genuinely the best in the world when they were champions. There should be no doubts about that.

 

No when Foreman held the championship Ali was the best heavyweight in the world

 

For me Liston was the best heavyweight in the world in 1956 and from 1958 to 1963. He missed out on 1957 due to jail.

 

I thought you were the foremost exponent of bigger isn't necessarily better?

 

" SOME DAY THEIR GONNA WRITE A BLUES FOR FIGHTERS. IT WILL BE FOR SLOW GUITER, SOFT TRUMPET AND A BELL."
Sonny Liston

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Key part of that article...Liston won the fight WITHOUT losing a round....

You really gonna nitpick a fight in which a green upcoming fighter wins a shutout decision over a more experienced fighter?

The lengths at which you go....